Ivan Nova

This offseason I’m going to recap sixteen-after-twenty, then I’ll go over the best rookies for next year, then I’ll go into sleepers and, finally, the new rankings. Holy crap! We’re already at the new rankings?! Oh, no, we’re not. Sorry, I sometimes confuse exposition and reality. Like, right now, am I explaining I confuse the two or am I really confused? Any hoo! I mention some offseason business now as an on-the-nose prelude to what’s to come, but also because I’m excited to talk about Alex Reyes for each one of those upcoming categories. Best rookies? Reyes still has eligibility, so check. Sleepers? He has a 1.57 ERA, more than a K per inning and averages 97 MPH, so check, check. Rankings? I want Reyes on every team next year so where do I rank him? Check, check, check! Check pah-vodka-sha! He trap me with that alligator blood! Damn, I haven’t seen Rounders in a while, I wonder if it holds up. *looks to see Rounders DVD holding up crooked bookshelf* Oh, yeah, baby! Yesterday, Reyes went 6 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks with the same superb — samperb? — pitching he’s done since he was called up. I can’t imagine he’s not in the rotation to start 2017, but, as Teddy KGB would say, Cards speak. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

On Sunday morning, I woke around 8 AM to read a text from Rudy saying, “Awful news, Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident.” I put on my glasses, no time for contacts, and turned on the TV. It was still on Fox Sports West because I was watching Vin Scully tributes all weekend. Yesterday morning, Fox Sports was playing Anglers Chronicles, a fishing show, which is wrong in so many ways. After switching the stations, groggy-eyed and still half asleep, I realized TV was not the place anymore to go for breaking news. I shut it off and turned to the internet. I’m still piecing together my thoughts. He was 24 years old, even if he never played baseball this is a horrible loss of life. I’m reminded of all the friends I lost to motorcycles in their twenties. I’m struck by how inconsequential fantasy feels. There’s a giant pit in my stomach. Then, I think about how I never saw Jose Fernandez not smiling. Not having fun. I think about how on that boat, Saturday evening, you know Jose Fernandez was having a great time, because he was always having a great time. That exuberance came through in everything he did. I think about how he spent time in prison after one of his numerous failed attempts of escaping Cuba, and how, even then, he was likely making fellow inmates smile. How the excellence he brought to the mound every fifth day was felt all the way back in Cuba to raise up even the darkest corners of Cuba’s prisons. “That was us. That is us,” the inmates, who are still incarcerated for trying to escape, likely said. How baseball does that. How special that is. You see what you’re going to see in tragedy, but I see Jose Fernandez pitching, and baseball, and making himself and others smile. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

So for a lot of these puppies I pump out here for Razzball (That makes sense in oldspeak terms right?! You’re not picturing me birthing a litter under Grey’s desk at the Razzball office, right?! RIGHT?!), I write the intro before a pitcher’s start to unsully my biases so you can read how the pitcher looked in real-time. Yeahhhh, football is on during Sundays now… It’s tough to multi-task watching the Panthers, RedZone, AND baseball! Alas, for this week’s installment of Pitcher Profiling, I had already known the outcome before breaking it down. The title should give it away as well!

I lucked out and nabbed Ivan Nova in several leagues just on a streaming whim within his first few starts on the Pirates, and was reaping the rewards of a late-season pitching surge. All hail Searage! I actually read an interview with Frank Herbert that the planet Dune was actually being mined for “Magic Searage Dust”, but it wasn’t literary-sounding enough, so he just went with “Spice”. Authors are nothing but lazy bums! Which speaking of, I picked a dude who got shellacked and didn’t pitch too deep… But I wanted to take a second look at how he… well, looked (lazy again!), to see if I should just cut bait and move on, or hold onto the most recent Searage reclamation project through the finish line. Here’s how Nova fared pitch-by-pitch, and hopefully a helpful treatises on if you should hold him as well:

I blame Jonathan Villar, Dusty, Francisco Lindor and Rougned Odor, in no particular order. Those players and Dusty are the reason why I owned Trea Turner and dropped him. I mean, no one would be crazy enough to put Turner in at Utility when he was first called up. Wasn’t gonna play him at outfield. He’s a middle infielder, and I had no room. *puts thumbtacks on desk, takes particular care to make sure the sharp ends are facing up, slams head onto desk* If I owned him, Turner would solve so many of my problems. He’d even fix my irregular bowels! This weekend Turner had three homers (11), three steals (27) and is hitting .355 in only 60 games. Trea magnifique! I haven’t seen this kind of emergence since…Damn, I don’t know how long. Maybe last year with Carlos Correa? Ouch, that comparison means Turner could disappoint in 2017? Don’t hate the player, hate the knowledge that the player possesses that makes him say things that are unlikable, which I guess could be lumped in with ‘hating the player,’ making it okay to hate the player. About a month ago, I thought Turner was going to be drafted around top 100 in 2017, but that was prior to the power showing up. With each homer, he’s moved up about a round, and now he’s breathing down the 2nd round for 2017. Depends if you think you ain’t seen nothing yet with Baseman Turner Overdrive. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

“Is this Men on the Move Moving Company? Great. I have a small problem. Okay, it’s not small. But it is a problem. I have a ‘hype sleeper’ sitting here and I’m trying to move sixteen posts in front of it. You can handle the job? That’s great! Can I get hyphens between each post too? I can? Wow, you guys are lifesavers.” *comes in to see* Hype-hype-hype-hype-hype-hype-hype-post-sleep-hyper. What the hell is this?! I wanted sixteen posts in front of hype sleeper! Not this gobbledygook! So, Taijuan Walker flashed some of that post16-hype sleeper business last night — 9 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 11 Ks — to lower his ERA to 4.28. It was an easy matchup (vs. Angels), but it still showed why year after year I keep going back to Walker. He is talented. Can anyone say seventeen posts for 2017? Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

The Diamondbacks host the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night in what is expected to be a pier six brawl. Both teams are starting below average left-handed pitchers and that means runs should come in bunches. The Rockies should do their fair share of damage, but the D’Backs are the holy grail tonight. Jorge de la Rosa is like a lamb being led to slaughter every single time he takes the mound. He occasionally racks up strikeouts, but mostly it is walks and meatballs. Arizona has two lefty killers in their outfield and I expect both of them to do damage. Rickie Weeks Jr. has one purpose in life and that is smashing lefties. He does it quite well. So well actually, that he still has a spot on a 25-man roster years after being removed as the Brewers’ second baseman. He’s never taken JDLR deep, but has five hits in 11 at-bats against the 12 year veteran. Yasmany Tomas is 6-for-12 with a home run against de la Rosa and lives rent free in his mind everyday. With Tomas just $4,400 and Weeks Jr. priced at $4,000, I am using both of them.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday September 19th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

Stephen Strasburg‘s MRI revealed a flexor strain, which is about the best news they could’ve hoped for. It’s also likely not-true news. Teams say all kinds of things; the truth is one of them, but it’s not always said. I’ll tell you the truth, I have no idea if the Nats are telling the truth. Gotta take their word for it, which means he’s droppable in redraft leagues, but he doesn’t need serious surgery so should be fine for 2017 and keepers. That’s until next year when his inverted W stands once again for wince. By the way, why is the inverted W not just called an M? Can anyone please answer me this? It hurts my brain. I’m gonna take a nap. *intern blows airhorn* I’m up, I’m up, let’s do the post. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

This Thursday is going to be a little nicer to us than last week, bringing us a six game evening slate of games. There are a handful of lefties starting in these games, and as you’ll see from my picks, some definite platoon advantages for you to take advantage of. I also loved the way Alex Cobb looked in his first start of the DL, and I love corn on the cob. I think I love baseball more though, so I’ll be especially rooting for the Alex variety of the Cobb to be the better one tonight.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday September 12th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to ourDFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

Not quite as spiritually moving as John Lennon, but imagine for a moment Jose Abreu were to actually put together two solid halves in the same year. “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No ‘He’ll end up below Andrus,’ for half the year. Above Andrus only this Jose guy. Imagine Abreu playing a decent, full season like today. Aha-ha… Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to drop or trade for, and no ‘Abreu’s so cold it’s like this hell has a fridge in it’ too. Imagine all the people living to get a piece of…Abreu… You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one! I hope some day Abreu’ll be better than Andrus, and play an entire season as one.” So, Jose Abreu hit two homers yesterday (3-for-7, 7 RBIs, and 21st and 22nd HRs), and he’s been great recently, but it’s hard to get that excited about a guy for 2017 who invariably takes three months off every year. Can’t imagine he’s a top 25 player ever again. You-WHO-OOH! Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Since being traded to the Pirates, Ivan Nova has exploded! In a good way. He has been different pitcher than he was with the Yankees. In five starts, Nova owns a 2.87 ERA, with 22 strikeouts and only 1 walk! You have to love a pitcher who doesn’t give up a free trips to first very often. In those starts he has averaged nearly 19 points. Tonight the Brewers are in town, and have been struggling all season. Not only are the Brewers brutal at hitting the ball and producing runs, they strike out a ton. The Brew Crew leads the league with a 25.8% strikeout rate vs RHP pitchers. The Pirates are 2.5 games back from a wild card and need to start winning more games. Meanwhile, the Brewers sit 19 games below .500 and are just looking to beat out Cincinnati for last in the division. I see Nova as one of the top picks of the day, and at only $8,900 it’s hard to pass that up. And with that … here are the rest of my Saturday DFS picks.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday, September 5th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.